Sunday, March 3, 2013

Looking back

Full Snow Moon waning

It’s still cold and surprisingly, it’s snowing hard. But even
though it’s very cold, 26 degrees, it’s a soft snow with big flakes and no
wind. It feels like this could be winter’s last gasp. For one thing the
daylight is lingering on well past 6:30. That helps a lot. I think I hate the
darkness of northern latitude winters more than the cold. Oh, I’m sure there will be some more snow and the
archetypal Ohio Spring comprised of Rain, Fog, and Temps in the 40’s. But, I
welcome it after this hard winter so far.

I was reading some of my earlier posts from years back and I
often mentioned my wolf, Yukon. With sadness I have to tell you that we lost
him this fall. A month later we lost Kato, our Husky. Yukon was thirteen so he
lived a long life. Kato was eleven. We got Yukon as a pup from a farm in New
Alexandria PA. He was hiding in a cave-like lair and from that day on he always
preferred holes. He burrowed under his dog house and laid there instead of
inside. Kato was rescued from a pet store where he was sickly and underfed.
When Diane bought him, Yukon had been gone seven days having run off with a
pack of feral dogs. We’d given up on him. Then, like a miracle, Diane saw him
running on a ridge-top while she was driving Kato home from the pet store. He
came running when she called. Kato followed Yukon everywhere. After Yukon died, Kato wandered around the house looking for him and, when he came down with an
infection, I think he just gave up. He died one month after Yukon. I still miss
them, especially on winter nights when the moon is full and Orion is glistening
in the southwestern sky. I’d stand outside with them and marvel at God’s cosmic
artwork, give them a bowl of evaporated milk mixed w/ water.